Regarding Georgie

George looks up from his book. Realizing that he’s been reading for more than an hour, he jumps up and gets on the phone for a conference call. “Shit,” he mutters to himself. He frantically searches around the house for a phone. He finally sees it, almost jumps on it, but then realizes that’s a stupid choice, and settles for grabbing it. His thumbs flying, he dials up the number, and barges in on the call like a (very sheepish) bull. He apologizes and tries to make it somewhat less awkward for him and his coworkers.

The call goes on for a few hours.

--- --- ---

It’s a miserable night. Raining, dark and cloudy. So cloudy, in fact that the only light illuminating the streets are the streetlights. George is watching the latest episode of some soap opera. He doesn’t care much for the story, but finds some of the characters quite interesting, particularly the one who was orphaned as a child. He thinks that is, perhaps, because he can relate. He’s laughing at a part where a child is asking their mother where babies come from, but realizes he’ll be answering that same question in a few years. Turning the television off, he gets ready for bed. He changes into his pajamas, brushes his teeth, and washes his face, deciding that he can hold off shaving until the morning. He is just about to climb into bed when he realizes he hasn’t checked the mail today. Looking in his mailbox, he finds some flyers and bills and the like, but all of them look somewhat weather-worn. He realizes the mailman left the mailbox open again, and ponders putting a sign up, but then something catches his eye. One of the envelopes looks almost fresh, and much less wet than the others.

Inquisitively, he looks at the envelope to see that it’s been tucked away nicely. Examining the envelope further reveals no address, stamp, or return address. His interest piqued, he rummages through the kitchen until he finds a letter opener. Once he finds one, he tears open the letter and several pages, neatly folded together fall on the floor. Kicking himself for his clumsiness, he takes a look at the sheets of paper on the ground to find the bunch held together by a string. Breathing a sigh of relief, he takes the letter opener and cut the string.

Looking at the pages, he notes erratic handwriting. It looks quite neat, and very well written in some places, messy and seemingly rushed in others. He wonders if the letter was written by different people, or just simply written over a period of time, and if the writer was feeling different things at different parts of the letter.

He looks over the letter, contemplates it, and begins reading.

Regarding Georgie

Hello. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? My you’ve grown. Just look at you. Getting older, more grown up, more mature. Feeling older, too, I’m sure. How old are you now? Forty or so? Don’t worry. You’re not that old, and in the near future you won’t be getting much older.

Now, George, how long has it been since we have seen each other? Maybe forty years? Ah, right, you wouldn’t remember. Of course. You were just an infant. A small babe in a nice family. And if I remember correctly, you spent the rest of your life in an orphanage, at least until you were 16 and could move out. Oh, your friends, they got adopted. But never you. People didn’t want to adopt you. You were tied to something. And even though it fell out of people’s minds, whenever they saw your name they’d remember. George Stevenson. The son of the big-shot. But you lived in an orphanage, right? That can’t be true. George Stevenson, the no-name orphan is who you are, what you are, right? Well, George, I have something to tell you.

You see, at the orphanage they never told you what happened to your family. They said that they left you on the doorstep. They said the father abused you as a baby (which does explain the scars on your stomach). They told you that you were in a car crash, and your parents died. They tried telling you nearly every story, except for some. Included in those few stories that they withheld was the truth.

I’ve never been to an orphanage, but I think that I have a general idea about how it was there. Crowded children in tight spaces with few toys to play with, creaky floors, and boring wood walls all painted white. A rat’s nest that they never bothered to clean out. When it was time to sleep you were in a cot next to 20 other cots. I bet you slept next to the bully in there who, in the middle of the night, would wake you up just to slap you. But it wasn’t all bad. You slept near your friends every night. You had your teddy and a few toys until said bully took them and flushed them. I imagine that you would have gladly traded your childhood with another little boy. You would have loved to have had an actual family, instead of sitting in the orphanage and waiting to be adopted. But you never were. You just kept on asking where your parents were. Don’t worry. I’ll answer that soon.

I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself yet. How rude of me. Here I am talking about your life when I haven’t even hinted at mine. Now let’s see, where to begin? Oh. I know. Perfect. I, like you were led to believe of yourself, am a victim of abuse. My father would frequently hit me for doing things wrong, and not just a spank-type slap. It was as hard as he possibly could. The full force of that usually would knock me down, and if it didn’t, he’d just hit me again. Not only that, but sometimes, if I was acting out, such as talking back, or crying, he would wrap his hands around my neck and start strangling me until I couldn’t breathe. I’d stop crying then. Not because my life hung in the balance, but because with the air cut off from my lungs, I didn’t have a choice. When I told my mother, though, she didn’t decide to put a stop to it. She decided to join in on the fun. And then it got worse. I had to do horrible, awful things, and they did horrible, awful things to me, too. I ran away when I was fifteen. I don’t know how you feel about my situation, but I know I would have loved to switch places with you.

As a homeless child, I couldn’t spend the night in shelters. Most of them wouldn’t take me, unless I had a parent or guardian with me. As should be apparent from the previous paragraph, I would rather have died than gone back to my parents, though. They were awful, horrible fuckers. Even forty years later, I’m still bearing the scars from those shits. And for a while, I was fine living out on the streets. I fit right in with the homeless, and looked as if I’d been on the streets for a while, what with all of the scars, tattered clothes, dirty face, bloody, rotting teeth. But then “the incident” happened. I took part in an illegal “bum fight”. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t happen to be a fact that the hobo I was fighting was a dirty old fucker with some sort of physical defect (it seemed). It looked like he needed medical attention, but because of healthcare hinging on a person’s fucking wealth he was forced to just deal with it.

I fought and scratched and bit and screamed. I took a huge knock-up in that fight, but gave an even worse one back. Whenever he let his guard down, I’d punch him as much as I could, wherever possible. Because my parents were the fuckers they were, I’d grown decently skilled at fighting people off who were much bigger than me. It helped that what little weight I had on me in that time was muscle. After he started to get wheezy and tired, I really attacked him. I took a few light punches at him, but then I put one well-placed punch, right to the chest. He was out cold, but even worse, because he was so old, and because of his possible defect, his heart stopped. I felt it stop, right on my knuckles. I loved every moment of that punch, and will continue to relive it until the day I die. The large crowd that had formed began cheering. That lasted until some guy realized, and called out that he wasn’t breathing. Total chaos ensued, some calling me a cold-blooded murder, others calling 911, others running away in blind panic.

When the cops arrived, they identified me. They put me in a restraining order, and into juvy. Since my parents had put out an Amber Alert, I was returned to their custody. They also asked that they have a week with me before the trials started, and pretended to be all caring. But once we got home, I was given the worst punishment of my life. Worse than anything the cops could administer. Worse than jail for life. I was beaten, punched, kicked, and tied to the basement banister, where they proceeded to stab my breasts and nipples with thumbtacks. They then untied me and left me for dead in the basement with a broken wrist, jaw, and multiple teeth missing. After lying there for several minutes, I managed to pick myself up off of the ground, and attempt to walk. I stumbled, but my body’s natural painkillers started to kick in.

I hobbled up the basement stairs, pain shooting up me with every step. Getting to the last step, I turned a corner, and found a steak knife, hanging on the wall, where it always is. I looked around the kitchen I had just stepped into, and found nothing out of the normal order of things. Grabbing the knife, and twisting my face into a small grin, I limped to my parents’ room. I slowly, silently, opened the door and found them asleep, or at least pretending to be. I snuck in, and found my father. As he was sleeping, I stuck the knife into his throat. Oh, what a beautiful sound it made. Such a beautiful, awful sound. I drove the knife carefully into his larynx, so he couldn’t scream. So that he couldn’t wake my mother. To my mother, though, I did something else. Something far more brutal. Using the knife carefully, I stabbed each eye once, and shoved the weapon into her mouth, and down her throat.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling. These are the most vivid memories of my life, and finally getting to share them is not something I’ve done before. I’m just imagining your reaction now. Your face twisted into a horrified grimace, you holding the letter as far away as possible. Let’s see, now. Where should I finish this?

As for names, I know yours, George Stevenson. I’m not sure you know mine, though. I am… let’s see… how shall I put this? I am the woman who has remained unfound for nearly forty years. Oh, yes, they all gave it their best shots, but nobody caught me. Since it would be suicide to reveal my name to you, as you will surely give this to police as evidence, I will ask you to refer to me as what the papers throughout town referred to me as. A killer. A cold-blooded, unmotivated murderer. I didn’t take your life then, but only through an accident on my part and incredibly low odds being surpassed on yours.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but I suppose that I should tell you what really happened. You see, the night I had done that, I planned to kill myself, as well. I had planned to end my life as soon as I stabbed my parents, but I couldn’t. With this wonderful, new sensation I couldn’t let my life go to waste. I had to have more of it before I died. And that night, across the street from my house was yours.

I stabbed them. I snuck into your parent’s house and fucking stabbed them. It was a great feeling, to steal away the life of another. It was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I (not joking) became sexually aroused! My heart was beating faster than NASCAR, and damn, it was loud. I couldn’t hear for shit when I did the act, but now I remember vaguely hearing their screams, and their cries, begging me for mercy. But my parents never gave me mercy when I screamed and cried. They only hurt me worse, so why should I be any different?

When I saw in the daily press (I was checking the publicity the murder had so far) I was astonished to hear that you were still alive, albeit in an unstable condition, I screamed with rage. I couldn’t believe I had let one of my victims survive! I had failed to kill a baby, an infant, so small it couldn’t understand what had happened. I was sure I was done for, but then I realized you couldn’t speak, you couldn’t remember me. I followed your story every day since then, wishing I had finished the job.

I suppose you’re worried for your life now. I know that you’re thinking, “Why should I trust a crazy psycho like her?” But I will go on with my memories and you will go on with your life. One problem, though. My memories are getting a bit hazy, and I think that one more round will just be enough to restore them to crystal clear.